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Kitchen Remodeling For Selling Your Home

In the prospective home buyer’s mind, the one room of the home that can be guaranteed to stick in his or her memory, is the kitchen. Even though bathrooms are important and the landscaping will add to the kerbside appeal of the house, the kitchen remains the number one priority.

However, kitchens are an expensive renovation because every new innovation seems to cost more and, as old adage goes, “yesterday's luxury is today's necessity.” This is true for the dishwasher, modern range and refrigerator. So how do you remodel or renovate a kitchen to sell your home without using up all your profits in the attempt?

There is no doubt that a pristine, brand new kitchen is a huge selling point and if your old kitchen has tatty cabinets and benchtops, you should probably do it. However, if your kitchen is not too bad, basically sound but just showing signs of wear or maybe a little dated, then maybe it just needs brightening up.

Cabinets

Number one of the list of desirable kitchen fixtures and fittings is cabinets. But cabinets are very expensive to replace since replacing them usually entails replacing the whole kitchen. There is a considerable time delay for this major renovation and no guarantee that the new kitchen would be exactly what the new owner would necessarily want anyway. And would you get a sufficient return for this big ticket expense? The other option is to refinish them.

Replacing and Refacing: For the most part, in the buyers eye, the kitchen cabinets are the doors. The rest of the cabinet only becomes visible when you see it from the sides and when the door is opened. Therefore replacing the doors and re-facing the cabinet sides can be an inexpensive solution and take a fraction of the time to achieve a great result.

To reface the cabinets you can choose to replace the doors altogether or just to paint or re-paint them. If you have lacquer doors then they can simply be re-sprayed in a more appealing colour. Even melamine doors can be lacquered with an attractive and durable finish. If your doors are timber, they can be spruced up by sanding and re-varnishing. Although it is possible to paint and varnish the doors by hand, getting a finish that will be of sufficient quality to sell your home the professionals.

Hardware: Whatever you plan to do with the cabinets, do check that the hinges and handles look and work well. Worn hinges can be replaced, new modern handles can be fitted. This is not expensive. Your doors should look good and work well. This is not expensive and does make an important difference.

Benchtop

The kitchen benchtop provides the work stations for the kitchen. Whatever cabinet door colour or material you choose, the benchtop will pull the whole kitchen design together. Therefore the when the prospective buyer sees the kitchen the benchtops have to be perfect.

Now we all can't afford to have natural stone benchtops but isn’t the point. It has to look pristine with no worn-out areas, chips or scratches. Too many people ignore their countertops and concentrate on cabinets or flooring. They don't see that what is a familiar and, to them, perfectly good benchtop can be a plain eyesore to the buyer. The buyer must not see yet another item that he or she will have to replace. Therefore, take a critical look at the benchtop and, if it is not perfect, replace it with something that will match your cabinets in a material that will suit the kitchen.

Laminate
Laminate is sometimes thought of as ‘the poor man's benchtop’ but a new one of good design with a well-chosen splashback will look good. in a kitchen renovation. This is a cheap way for a new look and they are easily and cheaply installed.

Sinkware
Rather than buying a new stainless sink consider fitting a modern set of taps or mixers. Very popular at the moment are mixers with a removable shower head so one of these should be considered. The sink can be rejuvenated by rubbing it with a stainless steel cleaner or jeweller's rouge compound. If the sink is damaged or badly scratched it will have to be replaced of course, but this is not a huge cost and you will get a more modern look.

Splashback

The right splashback will draw the eye and dazzle the buyer. There are many splashback options to choose from and it will pay to select the type carefully to blend with the style of the kitchen, i.e. modern, traditional, funky, etc.

Flooring

When it comes to kitchen flooring ceramic tile is probably the safest choice choice because it is hard wearing and durable, and a quality finish. Cork tiles now come in finishes that look like ceramic tile but with the merits of this warm, forgiving product. Natural cork though, does not go with every kitchen style and does not appeal to everyone. Vinyl flooring can be attractive but be very careful in choosing this as it can cheapen an otherwise nice kitchen.

Paint

There are usually very few spaces to paint in a kitchen but the concentration should be on tying the colours to the neighbouring areas. For this you can try testpots before committing to a particular colour.

Lighting

The right lighting can put a great face on almost any style of kitchen. So rather than trying to flood the whole space from one fixture or a halogen light track, try lights in differing areas. Under-the-cabinet lights are cheap and easy to install and they focus light onto the work areas. Lightind on top of high cabinets can provide very attractive and subtle illumination. Dimmer switches can be used to adjust the mood of the kitchen for different times of the day.

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